I had exactly one thing I needed to accomplish while Alexis was at dance tonight. I -had- to buy toilet paper. Remember last year at this time how that was a panic situation? GOOD TIMES! There's no panicking now, though there were advantages to those store runs back in 2020. I didn't take kids with me because we weren't sure if it was't entirely safe. And, well, there was NOBODY at Target. It was so delightfully empty on a weekday evening.
Aaaaahhh. the joy of shopping alone. It's still one of my favorite things. Alas, Mila was with me this evening, so that meant she got to go to Target. It wasn't all that crowded, because weeknight, so I made the very critical error of not walking directly to the toilet paper.
I think I've mentioned that Mila has gone feral since the pandemic began. IT'S TRUE. She has completely forgotten how to behave in public. COMPLETELY. She also missed out on over a year of shopping and that kid is a shopping fiend.
And her birthday is in a little under a month.
Mila decided she was going to leverage the opportunity to compile her very long list of things I should buy her for her birthday. She plowed her way to the toy department and trolled every aisle, picking up every single freakin toy and declaring her love for it. I tried about 4000000 times to get her to move the show along, but she is the joy chaser. The kid chases joy 24/7 and has zero regard for what comes right after the joy. So, picking up a doll and yelling, "I want this!" is just great to her. She has no worries at all when she can't see me or when I'm yelling, "Let's gooooooo" or anything. She just keeps on keeping on.
For real, I lost the kid twice because she detoured to look at something sparkly and then got distracted by something shiny and then wound her way around to something special. She just WANDERS, following her personally curated trail of joy.
I on purpose lost her once to try to teach her a lesson (I say "lost" but I snuck around behind her and stayed out of sight while still keeping tabs on her) but SHE DIDN'T CARE. It's easier to chase joy when the joy killer gets lost, y'all.
Two hours. It took us two hours to walk through Target and buy freakin' toilet paper.
How do you re-tame a kid? I really need to figure this out and quick.
